Ok, here it is so far. Man. sanding filler is a pain.

Mark,

Yea, my arm is a bit tired. You can see the primer spots on the fuse. I think next time I will wet the silkspan and just dope the edges and let it dry before hitting the main area with dope. Or possibly just go with Polyspan.

I can say one thing, I will never use other than SGM again. Absolutely no problems with sanding through on the ribs. Because this is a refinish and the framework wasn't as smooth and prepped as I normally do, I shot quite a lot of primer on this to insure that I got all the low spots with enough primer to fill them. But it makes sanding a real chore. I've been initially sanding it with 220 open coat aluminum oxide paper, then going to 320 of the same kind, then a trick 600 I picked up at the auto body shop. It's a zinc sterate paper that really takes out the scratches.

Should be ready for color in the next few days.

Don't stay up all night working on a plane. Leave off. It will be there when you come back and you'll be happier the next afternoon. Trust me.

Bill,

No, I had hoped to get it done before my friend leaves for Tucson, but that isn't happening. I put the silkspan on the fuse wet and then doped right over it. Should have tacked the edges down and waited for it to dry or hit it with a heat gun or something. When you do that (dope right over wet silkspan), you float some of the silkspan and it give a slightly uneven surface when it dries. I probably should have put a couple of extra coats of dope on the fuse to fill the low spots. Those low spots aren't much, but enough to leave quite a lot of filler. Granted, it probably doesn't amount to much more than a gram or two, but it's just irritating as heck. What I get for trying to get it done by a certain date. Especially when I've now found another ride for the plane that isn't leaving until February. Sigh...

Not a big deal, I suppose. I weighed the whole thing before and after the primer was shot. I'll check it again after I get done sanding. I don't expect to pick up even a 1/2 ounce in primer when it's all said and done. If I do, it will be back to sanding.

Don,

Yea, that was the one drawback to the Novi I built last year. I'm telling you, light pearl green is not the color to have around here with all the "treed" backgrounds. Poof!, it's gone!

Recently, I took all the cans of custom mixed paints I have (about 40 pint cans and 5 or 6 quarts) and moved the paint over to canning jars. Besides now not having to worry about the darned cans rusting (don't you just love living in a high humidity environment?), I can see the color through the side. An upside to this is being able to put jars side by side to see how the colors will look together. Makes picking out trim colors a lot easier.

So I now have my paint scheme AND colors picked out.

Main color will be Alabaster Pearl White, trim will be Ford Redfire Pearl, A custom mix Orangy-Yellow pearl, GMC French Blue Pearlcoat(as sort of Burple color), BMW Custom Bronze Pearlcoat and a bit of Black Pearl. Should be interesting anyway. Certainly the jars standing next to each other look very good. Oh, and Hawai'ian shirt LOUD!

Now your talking Randy, we like loud,, That will help Leo keep from walking on it too,,, 
sounds like it is going to be an interesting color combination for sure. So get it painted already. Dont be worrying about the clear , just bring it over we can clear it in the shop,, you konw the big booth! No temp issues there. lol

WOW! RANDY AND MARK!

I still have an old can of  Clear Coat Imeronie'  and harder sitting out in the garage.....
If you are brave or foolish enough to spray it?

First plane I ever painted with car paints had an Imron topcoat. The stuff almost put me in the hospital. Nasty stuff. Now I use a much better mask, long sleeves, a hat and goggles and shoot it outside, but not Imron. The stuff is way too heavy. I think I added something like 5oz in clear coat with one coat of Imron. I use some 2 to 1 catalyzed polyurethane now and it works well.

Interestingly, that plane had a base color of medium charcoal metallic (first plane painted with metallics) and 6 trim colors; mostly reds and oranges with a really cool Camero dark blue metallic. That was a pretty plane. Shame it weighed a ton.

Bill,

Well, I often try to keep the spirit of the original paint scheme. That's what I did with the Green Weenie. But sometimes you just have to do something different.

Still fighting with fillets. What a pita. I hope to be able to paint the base color this weekend.

Well, the filler is all sanded. I would have shot some heavily thinned clear on it today, but the compressor seems to have gone tits up. I'll have to take it apart tomorrow to see what's up. It's leaking. Not a good thing. And I had a problem with one of my spray guns. Man, when it rains ...

Oh well, I'll get it sorted out.